Piper vs Gaea

	Amazingly, Piper kept her focus. ‘Millennia of sorrow,’ she told Gaia. ‘Your husband Ouranos was abusive. Your grandchildren the gods overthrew your beloved children the Titans. Your other children, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handed Ones, were thrown into Tartarus. You are so tired of heartache.’
	‘LIES!’ Gaia crumbled into a tornado of soil and grass, but her essence seemed to churn more sluggishly.
	If they gained any more altitude, the air would be too thin to breathe. Jason would be too weak to control it. Piper’s talk of exhaustion affected him, too, sapping his strength, making his body feel heavy.
	‘What you want,’ Piper continued, ‘more than victory, more than revenge … you want rest. You are so weary, so incomprehensibly tired of the ungrateful mortals and immortals.’
	‘I – YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME – YOU CANNOT –’
	‘You want one thing,’ Piper said soothingly, her voice resonating through Jason’s bones. ‘One word. You want permission to close your eyes and forget your troubles. You – want – SLEEP.’